Microsoft Considered buying Slack for $8Bn

Microsoft considered buying Slack a messaging app for teams “that is on a mission to make your working life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive” for $8 billion as an acquisition move, but later stepped down to focus more on developing Skype.

The acquisition discussion led by Qi Lu, Microsoft’s executive vice president of applications and services, according to a TechCrunch report. Lu oversees all productivity, communications, education, search and other information services at Microsoft.

All your team communication in one place. A new way to get more done, spend less time in meetings, and reduce email. That’s Slack. • Real time messaging and file sharing for one-to-one and group conversations • Powerful search and archiving, so you can find information easily • Hundreds of integrations with apps and services including Dropbox, Asana, Google Drive, Twitter, Zendesk and more • Instantly syncs across all devices • Configurable notifications for desktop, mobile, and email • Scientifically proven (or at least rumored) to make your working life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and CEO Satya Nadella were not supportive of the internal campaign to purchase the popular messaging app, so the deal never materialized. Instead, the company is pushing to make Skype more competitive in the enterprise collaboration services market. Microsoft had already acquired SharePoint, Yammer and Lync to bolster that ambition.